Evaluation of the Key Stage 2 Language Learning Pathfinders

Time spent on the project was gathered through the local authority advisor interviews, duringwhich advisors were asked to estimate the time spent on the project by themselves, otherlocal authority staff, and school based staff, and through the case study visit interviews,where teachers and heads were asked to estimate their own time spent on the project. It isclear that, as this is again an indirect measure, and estimating time spent on particularactivities is sometimes hard for individuals. It was noticeable in the data that while there wasa high level of consensus between teachers on their own time spent on the project, this wasnot the case for local authority advisors. This was largely due to the different modelsemployed in different local authorities, though in some cases advisors appeared to haveoverestimated actual time spent on the project (65 hours a week and 60 hours a week beingmentioned). As our view was that these numbers represented either exaggeration or poortime management skills, these were revised downwards to the maximum allowed under theEuropean Working Time Directive, 48 hours.Interviewees were asked to rate the number of hours spent per week, as this wasconsidered to be a timescale that respondents could quantify relatively easily. This did meanthat we were left with the task of calculating actual number of hours per week, taking intoaccount holiday and leave. For teaching staff and Learning Assistants, this was done usingthe official terms and conditions for the profession, which stipulate a 195 day year, whichequates to 39 weeks. For non-school staff this exercise was again more complex. Wedecided to follow precedent from work done by the Department of Health, suggesting a 42week year taking into account holiday, leave and sickness.Another issue that came to the fore in these analyses was what exactly to include as part ofteaching staff work, as it could be argued that we did not have to include teaching time asteaching staff would be engaged in the teaching of other subjects when not teachinglanguages anyway. However, from a cost effectiveness perspective this would have beenproblematic, as this would not have taken into account the opportunity cost associated withteaching languages as part of the Pathfinder. This opportunity cost was associated with thefact that time spent teaching languages had, in view of the limits of school time, been to thedetriment of teaching another subject or other activities in the school which may have madean equally valid claim on teacher time (Levin & McEwen, 1999). However, in terms ofadditional costs of the Pathfinder it could also be argued that these costs should be left out.We have therefore undertaken both analyses, with the proviso that additional preparationtime for the development of Pathfinder materials has been added.118